"Was that seat hot or what? I feel like a Whopper. Turn me over, I'm done on this side. I'm afraid to look at my ass. There'll be griddle marks." -Del (Planes, Trains & Automobiles - John Candy)
My name is Captain Cat Sparrow and welcome to my blog...
I don't really know why I'm sat here at gone 2am still wondering why I haven't gone to bed and yet deciding to write on here. Probably because I know I haven't got to get up at 5:30am to go to work in the morning.
That's the thing when you have time off, you make the most of each day, each day is so special that you just don't care what time you go to bed, just so long as you can have one extra minute in this day before the next.
I'm happy tonight, very happy, my dad had his operation today to remove his cancer...We all sat around all day at home waiting for anything, any sign or any news that he was okay, that the operation had been a success, that he'd be out of the theatre before too long...Well he was prepared and left the ward at just after 12 in the afternoon, he had to wait until 3/3:30 in the pre-op area then he was taken in and the wonderful Dr. Hemingway did his thing and finally at around 6:20pm this evening he was back in the recovery room being woken up by the nurses and doctors.
Me and mum and the family have been ringing non-stop all day trying to find out information, almost every hour another of us was on the phone grilling anyone we could get our hands on for info how dad was doing. Everyone had said today that last night (Tuesday) they hadn't slept and neither had me or mum. Everyone did things today to keep their minds occupied, but me and mum just sat around most of the day waiting.
There didn't seem much point in doing anything else, I wanted to be with my dad, I'd have given anything to be there in his place today. I wished all day that it would've been me. One of my sisters said that she prayed to my Nana last night and begged her not to take him yet...It looked like it worked! Thank you Nana....
Dad came out of the op looking a little worse for wear, I've seen him better...This was massive operation for him, not your every day little cough and cold but a major thing for him to under go, we're not out of the hot water yet and though he looked a little better than expected tonight, we still have one foot in that hot water and the next few days are critical to his eventual recovery.
I love my dad, as any girl loves her dad... I'm a daddies girl and I always will be, he gives me so much more than I could ever ask for and he always has and that's something I'd never be able to pay back with just love alone.
We shared a glass of vodka tonight with brother and sister in law and mum. We drank to dads health, to the relief and to the fight that still go's on... There's a long road from A to B but he'll not be alone, at least now we can help him in every way possible. Dr. Hemingway did the hard part by removing the cancerous part of his bowel... Now I guess it's all up to god.
Now that we're coming up to Easter I doubt I'll get a chance to wish you all a very happy Easter, so I do so now and thank you all for you continued and tireless support that you all have given me, good friends the best of friends... Even though we had our differences you all stuck by me and gave me and my family constant support and I know I wouldn't have made it this far without you. Let's just say at least you had the decency to ask if he was okay, which is more than I can say about others.
Thank you anyway, to you all now is the time to recover and gain back those moments, for now we live to fight another day.
Okay so I've not exactly kept my promise of keeping you guys updated. Truth be told I've been really busy being with my family, working and generally doing a lot of things that maybe isn't quite the "norm" for me. Or at least it wasn't, for a long time anyway.
The past few months have been awful, to be fair. Finding out dad had cancer was just the worst thing ever. It's been a long road to get to where my head's at now. Let alone what my dad's going through and my mum and family. It's been a weird long while, we found out about a month or so ago that dad had cancer and since then its been nothing but tests for this and hospitals for that, I'm not sure where he went for what reason anymore.
I get this odd feeling down in my stomach that I should be making the most of this time I have with my dad because it could in all fairness be the last time I do get to spend good quality father and daughter time with him, even though that's a horrible thing to say...
He's been updating me daily about the "list of things to do should he not pull through this." Coming from an emotionally wrecked daughter [but hiding it excellently] I'm doing okay with it. I haven't sobbed for a week or two now, but mainly I figure that's because I'm the one that's holding the foundation together. Mom isn't coping well but she says she's being strong for dad who in turn is being strong for her and Tom...Well he's just Tom, not sure whether he's being strong or not.
Anyway, dad has he pre-op next week and I'm not really sure what's going to happen there, Mom told me tonight that dad's opted to go and be tested on...Well as she put it "used as a guinea pig" to try some drugs that haven't been trialed yet in the major market. She's not too sure about it, but I guess I'm thinking along the same lines as dad and I guess the doctors...If they discover something that could save someone elses life in the future, then where's the harm in that?
I'll keep you posted on my dad, his operation is the 30th March...
I got to thinking about a lot of things the past few days, I'm keeping an open mind to new possibilities. I know one day I'm gonna have to stand on my own two feet and decide what it is that I want out of my life before it's too late, but I'm not really sure what it is yet.
I keep looking at the people around me, my friends who have boyfriends and children and new mommy's and daddies. My family who have new job roles, more money and new prospects, I keep thinking that maybe I was put on this earth to become something more than this, maybe I'm special and God has this great plan later in life for me, I want so to believe that after mom and dad go to the great world beyond that I'll be this great legacy waiting to be fullfilled.
Maybe that's shooting a little high but I want to do things with my life I know that much, I get this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think of being a mom who sits around the house all day with a fat slobby husband who pick his nose and demands his dinner at 7pm precisely. Then I go to the shops in my smelly rags acting all ruffian and telling my kids to shut up. It makes me feel sick, the thought of that being what I may turn into if I don't sort out what I want from life now.
Truth be told I feel tied down to my parents, Tom got off easy, he moved out first so naturally looking after mom and dad in their later years fell on me and well...Not that I wouldn't do it all over again, I just feel like until their gone there is no future for me, I cant leave them, they need me as much as I need them, even financially, for me its viable to stay at home its easy and hey, it might not be my own space and at times we have our arguments but it'll always be my home.
I hope my mom and dad stay around for a long, long time yet though.
I guess I'm just airing what's going through my mind just lately. I'm one of these people who gets an idea in their head and then I think "yeah you know what I'm going to do it", then I think "well why bother nobody will care apart from them at the end of it and they already care now so why bother going through it all at all?"
I don't know, I'm a very confused young woman who's trying to figure out who she is deep down, trying to discover if settling down and having kids is what I really want. Right now, I don't want kids, I love kids but I just cant see myself as mom. I watch kids and parents from my till at work everyday and everyday I think "if that were me" and then I just stop right there, it isn't me, it's not what I want. I want to be somebody, I want to see things and go places, not be tied down to a house and mortgage, with no prospects but changing nappies and hauling myself out of bed to drag the kids to school of a Monday morning. Rushing around for a poart time job to just pay the bills and feed mouths. Its not me.
I want to BE somebody, doesn't everyone?
I guess I'm just dreaming of things I wish I could be but probably never will. I cant sit behind a till for the rest of my life...I know that.
I wish life was like the movies, you could just walk out of your job, throw down your pinny, and sail off into the sunset. But it's not and the closest any of us ever get to that dream is riding the bypass of a Sunday evening mid summer. Have you ever done that? Driven down an open rode at cruising speed on a hot summer evening, when its not too hot and there's a gentle breeze. Hardly any cars on the road and you look ahead of you and all you can see is open road, the sun setting in the distance, a gorgeous pink and blue sky, and nothing...No problems, no worries just absolute peace, with maybe you favourite soft song playing on your car stereo.
It's an amazing feeling and such a shame it doesn't last...
I was looking for the perfect song to finish on, a little song that I could dedicate to my dad but...Well nothing seemed right, I happened to be watching something to do with the Bible the other day and afterwards an advert came on with a song on it I've heard before...A long time ago. I remember hearing my mum sing this in the kitchen when making dinner one summer's evening when I was very young and dad would be sat out in the garden, sipping coffee under the parasol and reading the newspaper, listening to my mum hum/sing this song...
Just a little taster to let you know I'm still breathing. Haven't really got time/had time to really gather my thoughts for a post just as of yet. But I have strangely been thinking about my faith of late, Jesus and what not and complied and made this video al by myself. Hope you like, catch up soon.
I guess the realisation of dad getting cancer first hit me when I got to work because that’s basically my home away from home. I spend most of my time at work and so it’s only natural I get accustomed to the people and the faces, the times we share together and what not.
At first I just felt like I was dying, I knew the tears were coming but I could do nothing to hold them back. My manager took me under her wing and gave me a shoulder to cry on, for that I’m unbelievably grateful. There’s just some things in life that need a good friendly comfort to bring you back to reality and make you see sense.
Having suffered it herself and loosing her father to it, she can understand and feel what pain I must feel. At the moment I feel numb, oblivious to everything. I walk around in a complete daze trying to carry on as normal, when all the time I’m wondering ‘what if…’ I try and be strong in front of my family but in the last few days since we found out, I’ve found myself sobbing uncontrollably.
My brother’s taking it really hard and to be honest I didn’t expect anything less, he’s so much like my mum in the emotion department and she too broke down and is devastated. I’m so far, the only person who puts on a smile and tries to make them laugh, but I know as soon as the jokes over…That’s it.
I can’t describe to you, my friends and family, the pain I feel. I’m so lost and confused, I don’t know how to feel or to think, I go to work because a part of me needs to, to see happy people getting on with their lives and smiling all day, but the other part of me feels I’m too weak and depressed to stay and watch what happens next.
What will happen next? What are the next steps? When’s the op? I don’t know it’s only day three and yet a part of me is dying slowly…God help me…I can’t loose my dad…
I suppose that's when I feel it the most, the quiet most private thoughts always come when there's silence all around me and the night ebbs away into day, another day another dollar. It's now that I sit reflecting back on all the should have been's all the want to have's and the missed opportunities.
I'm thankful for these times, they give meaning and purpose in my life, make me regret, make me happy, make me feel sorrow too in a way I guess. But all in all is a part of this life that we lead and are completely unable to change.
I often have wondered whether we really played a part in the making of our lives here on Earth, especially since I've been reading That book I got for Christmas. It explains a lot about choosing things that were going to happen to us in this life, choosing who we were going to be, but yet leaving out the all important answer of why.
Why do we exist? Are we a game in God's play room, there for his amusement? Or do we really have a clear goal in this world? There is no definitive answer and it's the one question even dead people don't seem to be able to answer, for no medium I've seen has ever given a clear view on it.
It was like going out in the snow a couple of days ago, snow... It seems so innocent laying there on the ground, untouched by the Human hand, fresh and sometimes wet and sticky and others powdery. It lays there peaceful yet before you know it, there's a set of shoe prints in the innocent snow...The snow is innocent no more. It can try to cover up all the shoe prints and bird prints, cat prints and dog prints, bits of fallen leaves and twigs but that snow will never be as innocent as what it was when it first fell.
So beautiful and pure and white...All innocence lost. The scars hiding under the crackling surface of perhaps more new snow, but forever scared.
I kind of feel that's what happens when you come into this world, you become impure from a certain age and you no longer see what you are supposed to see, you mix and fold in with every other Human on this Earth and become trapped in a Web of guilt and miss-trust. It's not easy and nobody ever claimed this life was going to be, or if they did we were too blind to hear it or not quiet enough to pay attention.
It's also in these quiet times that I find myself reliving back some of the things I've said and done that made others unhappy, that made them wonder why and how. I don't pretend to ever be innocent, neither do I even pretend to be even half as pure as the freshly fallen snow. I lost this innocence just like you when I was a wee child and I cried the first time I didn't get what I want.
There's too many people out there who mean so much to me, who have no idea how much they do mean to me until its too late. I dearly cherish each of them, but wonder how many mistakes they could say they have made in their lives?
I talked in my last post a lot about relationships, in fact I do talk a lot about it anyway. It's a part of my life another notch on the wall...It makes me who I am today and after a brief conversation with the Ex the other day (I really should start calling him by his given name but to protect confidentiality we'll say 'Mark') I began to realize that not everything in life is always as easy as handing you a plate and asking you to help yourself.
I was reminded of feelings and things that Mark and I used to share, things I thought I'd forgotten and things I thought I could and had moved past. It's almost been a year that we've not been together, and yet sometimes it won't let me go, it wont let me breathe and hold on to the memories. I think people feel like I drag this out, like I should get over him already for Christ's sake, but how can you get over someone who really did mean the world to you?
I'll keep my private thoughts for these quiet times, I try not to show my emotions on the subject of love and especially when its with Mark and regarding Mark, although I have moved to the stage where I'm OK with him, the thoughts of love that were once there never perish, but then only I'll know and feel that for words of love in my heart aren't ever spoken but kept once again for these quiet times. What else can I do? The road ahead is long and I must face it now alone.
I know it's not quite New Year yet but I couldn't see myself writing another post before Friday so I thought I'd get in early! I hope you've all been keeping well, I've had a fairly miserable Christmas, slept most of it down and out with the flu! No it wasn't swine flu before your little minds get a tickin'!
Just one cold on top of another, thought I'd make it for Christmas but then blasted down at the last hurdle with one heck of a cold, funnily a friend at work got ill the same day I did, just goes to show there must be something going round!
All in all though Christmas 09 was a lovely day, spending time with the kids, bro and and Gem did me good!
As a present from my brother and Gem, I got a ticket to go see (with them) live in Manchester: Peter Kay! I absolutely adore Peter Kay he makes me CRY laughing, I'm really looking forward to it, so much that I screamed when I opened the envelope Christmas Day.
I got a gorgeous IPod touch as well as docking station which gives me the extra edge to blast my music first thing in the morning before turning on my PC. So all in all I didn't do too badly. I'm really glad this year is coming to a close, for some reason its been the year of death, lots of soldiers killed in Iraq of course, Celebrity death is another, thankfully, I haven't had anyone I know personally die, so no funerals for me this year, although some days I have wondered.
Dad's doing a little better now, better than the last time I wrote of him, he went to have an "Endoscopy" today which in English means a camera down the throat, thankfully we got the news back that dad didn't have cancer in his stomach which was of much relief to us all I can tell you! He did however have a "Hernia" where he'd previously had one, 5cm in length so they said, they took some biopsy whilst they were in there too so he's a bit sore at the moment.
I had to admire his strength though, both me and my sister agreed we'd have to be fully knocked out before anyone shoved anything down our throats!
So that's the update-age on the family! So bar being ill and Christmas I simply didn't have the chance to update you all over that period! I was really busy working and what not, although this year work seems to have been really slow, maybe that's a sign of the times and the economic downturn, I'm not really that into politics to care.
I've come to realise the last few weeks that Dean Martin is my ideal man. I think a lot of girls (or rather women) have said that over the years. But I don't mean him personally, I mean in the personality type trait, he's the bad boy macho Itlaiano-show case nut that fits with my wacko-outrageous, weird, sarcastic icky sticky lady type. I have taken a large interest in his music, favouring some of his songs on Youtube, my fave at the mo would have to be this:
His voice sends shivers down my spine, I seriously get the chills of "perfection" when I hear him sing. I was having a lengthy discussion with a relative/friend of mine I used to work with long ago (when I was young and innocent) the other day. She couldn't believe someone like me of my age and "trend" would be interested in someone like him.
Basically if I'd lived in a different time and place I'd more than likely have done anything to make a move on this smooth talking sweetheart. He's perfect and the fact that he's so im-perfect is what makes him perfect! Work that out :)
I could talk about Dean Martin for a long while yet but I know most of you will be nagging at me at some point in our joint Yahoo con-flabs that I'll have to smooch you all into high heavens! So I'll move swiftly on, probably best as I'm trying to not rabbit on too much!
I've been reading a book I got for Christmas (actually I need to do a call out for Kudos to a mega awesome super friend of mine Samantha (my chic!) who introduced me to this book after we discovered we were both into the same thing!) It's a book about a lady who can speak with the dead, it's about communicating with Spirits and knowing (in the writers mind) what her interpretation is (whether it be true or not) of what the afterlife tells her happens when we die.
Of course it's not just covering death and spirits she goes into great detail about other things such as dealing with greif and how grief doesnt have to nessicarily mean that you've lost someone who has died, you can also grieve for the loss of jobs, loss of pets and even loss of a realationship.
I think that last part was what made me want to buy the book more than the other parts (although reading it I dont actually want to get to that part yet I want to read more about the afterlife parts!) In the book it describes stages of grief, and I physically can now say I have reached number 10 (I think it's 10 don't quote me!) I'm one step away from the last stage which is moving on, and continuing with my life's purpose. She basically explains that before we arrived here we chose what our life was going to be like, we discussed our life's plan with God and the angels. It really is an amazing read and even though I havent reached the part about realationships yet, I'm happy to say I made it this far on my own and I'm really proud of myself for how I handled myself.
A friend asked me the other day, "I saw on Facebook you'd joined the group "a new year a new start"" "Yeah?" I replied wondering what her response would be. She took a breath, put her arm round my shoulder and cuddled me a bit. "I'm really proud of you Cat."
I didn't know it at the time but she explained it to me a couple nights ago over late night txt-ing in bed. She'd been with me for most of the complete shitty days where I'd hated myself, where I'd been so low over loosing someone I loved, she'd been through most of it with me, she said she was proud of me because she couldn't have done what I did.
I explained to her that if I hadnt had the most amazing friends and family like her I wouldnt have got that far! And that by joining that group on Facebook I was making a statement, next year everything that happened this year, all the "bad things" and the "terrible things" were gonna be forgotten, I wasnt going to sit back and watch my life go by anymore, I'm my own person and I'm a wonderful, caring smart young lady with a heck of a lot to offer, I know next year I'll find my second attempt at mister right, because there's no way I'm spending another year alone...
She txt back.... :D
Who knows, maybe it's on the cards right now? Keep you posted peeps :D
Have a good un and don't get too drunk!!!
£> Captain Caticus Sparrow <3 xxx xxx
P.S I take it back Dean Martin IS my ideal man, personailty and all...*Day dreams*
GUYS IMPORTANT NOTICE: YOU MAY HAVE TO TURN YOUR SOUND UP, I KINDA GOOFED WITH SITTING BACK IN MY CHAIR SO I WAS FURTHER AWAY FROM THE MIC ON THE CAM, SORRRRRRRY! xxx :) You know you love me anyway :p xxx
